Corporate greed is killing RuneScape
Out of my friends list of 45 people, I know that's not a lot but still, small list of friends that I have that have played this game actively since the very beginning, two of them still play the game and one of them does not even subscribe full-time. Only when there's a major update.... When I asked every single one of my friends why they no longer play anymore the same exact reason was said. “They were taking over by an investment company, and now it just seems like a silly cash grab. They keep raising the prices, keep missing the mark, don't listen to players.” <<< One of my friends said this to me....
So let's get the facts straight here
According to Jagex full accounts report in 2008 from the UK government website, they made $10 million in profit back in 2008. So they were not operating at a loss. Their profit for the year 2022 is up to 38 million. Jagex's profit rose from £10 million in 2008 to £38 million in 2022, a 280% increase. From 2008's price of $7.95 to the current price of $13.99, the RuneScape membership price has increased by approximately 76%.
So in other words, Jagex profit has risen by 280% since 2008, and They raised the subscription by over 80%. If we count the entire lifespan of RuneScape, it's gone up by 180%. This is: corporate greed.
For reference, by the way, World of Warcraft has never once had to increase their subscription price ever. We also have bonds in our game, and RS3 is completely monetized. A monetized game and a subscription is absolutely insanity, when you add in percentage increases to the subscription price, that's just silly
Edit: A reddit user also pointed out that you have to pay $14 a month for EVERY character, even if you're part of the same account. WoW let's you have 60+ characters in your subscription.
I feel like you're attacking the wrong thing.
The subscription hike is something, but U.S./U.K. inflation from 2008 to 2022 is about 40%, and that's not accounting for any changes in corporate taxes. Its... well, it's kinda mad that WoW hasn't increased the subscription price that whole time, if that's true, but that's partially because they sell expansions, right? And those probably creep up with inflation.
The problem is the choices they've made with that money, aka shoving more aggressive monetization into the game instead of keeping it simple, which was so central to its appeal long ago. Of taking short term profits instead of investing in R&D, new game development, and deeper development for Runescape. This is the real corporate greed. Making money is fine, but just taking it as pure profit at the expense of long-term health is destructive, greedy, unfair to the employees and wrong.
Also, I played Runescape ages ago, and well... I just got tired of the game. I feel like thats why many people left, and I also think it's kinda mad expecting most players to play the same game forever.
Well, I mean wow was already at $15 a month back in the day. When it came out in 2004, It was like paying $25 per month today. It was damn pricey back then. At this point I think they're getting all the money out of it that the market will bear. Yeah the expansions help but I suspect they're running leaner now than they were.
I doubt anyone knows how much of the playerbase it makes up, but the WoW subscription effectively went up to $20 a month for anyone that's using in-game gold to fund it.
I quit when they announced the membership increase a few months ago.
I've been logging on for the new updates since my membership lasts until next month but they have all been pretty much terrible since.
It really saddens me to see the game go down this path.
Don't worry, there will be better times ahead friend. Maybe not for this game, but I'm sure that someone will be inspired by the joy that the game brought them and create something similar. Games like Valheim arose this way, and the original dev (Gower) is creating another game with no microtransactions in it at all. Just sucks that this has to keep happening repeatedly with every game
I'm just glad I came back for the Elder God Wars year, that was some of the best RuneScape content we've ever gotten.
Meanwhile in osrs team they have open communication with the community, new content is released only if accepted by vast majority of players, no mtx or other major enshittification of games, the developers clearly very much care of the game and want to keep it running.
You can't say that for vast majority of the game developers
Hmm idk... The community is mad half the time at the devs. The voting is awful and simply doesn't work at all. They're not a tight knit company anymore either, they're owned by an investment company
I quit probably 11 years ago. IIRC they did some dumb stuff to cap trades, and I played out most of everything that was very cool & interesting, and they kept adding new stupid skills that I had absolutely no interest in doing. Like the hunting/trapping skill. But then they'd release sick new quests, with good rewards/perks, but to do them you'd have to extensively train up that yucky, boring, dumb "skill" that you would never use otherwise. If not for that quest.
They turned my play into work, and took the fun out of it, and eventually I was like why am I paying these people so I can grind away hours on dumb stuff that I don't even like?? So I quit.
You know it's so funny about the hunting skill that was really controversial? The people who actually did the skill did not enjoy it at all It was extremely tedious and frustrating, myself included. One of the worst skills and I've had no interest in doing it since. But it is by far the most botted skill in the game, pretty much everyone that I came across two years ago doing that skill when I still played, they were all bots. Like every single one of them. You could even mess them up just for fun by putting boxes around them so that you captured stuff and they would basically error out because the spot wasn't working
That is truly hilarious. Idk if I'd stoop to that, maybe I would, because fuck 'em. But I'd be a relatively "active" bot, if that makes sense. Just leave it run on a secondary screen, check it often. Maybe while surfing the web, or reading a book. I'd be there! But all this clicking & clacking, running around, tedious AF. Screw that, man. I'm not your monkey. I felt it was just disrespectful of our time, and I guess I wasn't alone in thinking that.
Botting is dangerous, though, especially when you've got a powerful character worth a damn. I had a really good character, I wouldn't ever want him getting banned. I put in too many good hours to get a ban.
That's... the opposite of killing the game
Inertia.
You do realize you're the probelm right? The only vote that matters is the one you make with your wallet, and you voted the subscription hikes are ok.
I don't subscribe anymore. I unsubscribed with the other people who left when the subscription increase was announced
Typical .ml moment.
I think your need to do some inflation adjustment, their costs increase a lot as well. And raw "record profits" aren't meaningful when not inflation adjusted.
Everything is getting more expensive, thats mostly not corporate greed (some of it is tbh) its just the general world economics being in a very big crisis from multiple world effecting events, covid, Russia attacking Ukraine, the fucking Suez channel ship thing (yes that shit actually effected world economics), the comeback of terrorism, the right wing people playing Russian spys for their own gains in all of the western world (super left as well, but they don't have much power gladly) Chinas entire economy is going down the drain for many internal reasons. The World economy has long covid, untreated epilepsy and very bad hemorrhoids all at once basically.
They added microtransactions to both Runescape 3 and Oldschool, bonds never existed back then, so now you can buy gold in game, which is huge insane revenue amount for them. World of Warcraft has never had to increase costs even once.
https://www.eurogamer.net/world-of-warcraft-subscription-prices-will-rise-in-november
WOW did increase costs, is heavily monetized with micro transactions and thats basically state of the art for mmorpgs right now. The server and development costs are huge for such service games and a company needs to make profits, i don't say there is no greed involved, but i do understand some of the decisions.
Ohh darn you're right. I misremembered. Thought it was always 15. But yeah, I get the cost of running the game and all that stuff. Totally valid points.
Yeah i also understand you that pushing micro transactions sucks for the players.
It's honestly crazy how horrifically they monetized RS3. You're spammed with login notifications for your free gambling opportunities. Idk what it is now but it was squeal of Fortune, then some weird chest opening game you get two keys from or you get them from just playing the game and at random. Met a guy who spent $3600 on getting his skills up. Unfathomable to me
Oh wow, didn't remember it being that bad. Sounds like its getting close to Diablo Immortals territory...